Task built up to a deadly — and yet promising — series finale, but did the HBO series wrap up every story line?
During the finale, which aired on Sunday, October 19, Grasso (Fabien Frankel) tried to make amends after he was revealed to be the mole working with Jayson (Sam Keeley). Speaking of the Dark Hearts member, Jayson was on the run with Perry (Jamie McShane) when he found out his wife was murdered — and Jayson’s mentor was to blame.
Jayson killed Perry before tracking down Maeve (Emilia Jones) to steal the money that Robby (Tom Pelphrey) left for her. The situation escalated by the time Tom (Mark Ruffalo) showed up to find Grasso bleeding out.
Before Tom could step in, Grasso killed Jayson. Elsewhere in the episode, Tom came to terms with Sam going to live with his new family. The Brandis’ also attended Ethan’s hearing, where Tom publicly forgave his adoptive son for accidentally killing his wife. Task ended on a hopeful note with Tom preparing for Ethan’s possible return while Maeve left town with Robbie’s children.
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Us Weekly spoke exclusively with Keeley, 34, about building up to Jayson’s death after a lengthy reign of terror.
“Most of us are brought up in a culture where the right thing to do is the good thing to do to be a good person. To follow the rules, love in the way that we love and to take care of each other and to not harm other people. I think that life sometimes puts people in positions where they very often don’t get a say,” Keeley explained about playing a self destructive character. “It’s one of the core themes of [creator] Brad [Ingelsby]’s show is, ‘What is it to be a good person? What prism are you viewing that through? What metric are you using to measure that as?’ I find that fascinating as an actor — exploring the human experience.”
Keeley enjoyed getting to explore characters who take unconventional steps to “attain their goals,” adding, “The consequences are dire because people get hurt when you make those decisions and you behave in such a manner. The problem with Jayson was I didn’t necessarily know that he wasn’t going to make it.”
The actor couldn’t see the antagonist’s story concluding in any other way.
“By episode six, I was like, ‘Somebody has to kill this guy. He’s going to kill everybody because he is just so destructive.’ He had to go eventually. He had to be put down. He was just too much,” Keeley said before joking, “We couldn’t have that guy running around with no wife and a lot of drugs.”
Keeley knew all bets were off once Jayson killed Perry.
“He’s a very reactionary person. He runs on instinct and it’s the betrayal [that motivated him]. Perry was like a father figure to him in the backstory that we had worked out. You’re seeing Jayson at his most desperate and Perry took away the one thing that gave him stability. He just wants to hear his wife’s voice — even through all of this chaos that’s been created around him,” he explained. “But I still wanted to not have him be a masked villain in the dark. He wanted to be with his family and Perry took that away from him.”
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Keeley continued: “He’s gone at that point. He becomes feral. The decision was made for him at that moment after he was teetering on the edge as it was. It’s that principle and it’s that drive of this means something to him. When his wife is taken away, it’s just full Terminator mode. I don’t think he’s even thinking clearly.”
Despite bringing one of the villains of the show to life, Keeley didn’t see it that way.
“You want to try and get people to understand his perspective. He’s a man of principles and in that motorcycle club culture, it’s live by the sword, die by the sword. His honor is very important to him in that respect. That aspect of pride trickles into other aspects of his life, like his marriage, his family and everything else you know,” he told Us. “I was able to justify Jason’s actions and I made it all about family. I don’t know if people are going to be able to resonate with that, but I know that a lot of people would go to great lengths to keep their family unit together.”
While it is hard to imagine anyone else getting Us so invested in Jayson, Keeley revealed that his character wasn’t the original role he first auditioned for, saying, “I was up for Grasso but Fabian absolutely crushed it. He smashed it out of the park. And then they offered me Jayson straight out so I didn’t have to read.”
Keeley was extremely committed to fleshing out Jayson with his grounded performance.
“It was important to everybody involved creatively that he not be a cookie cutter version of a motorcycle president. What Brad does so well in his writing is that he doesn’t particularly write villains. He writes people on the other side of the fence,” he said. “I always saw Jayson as somebody who in his heart of hearts believes that he was a good guy. He cared about his family, his kids, his club and the lifestyle that creates for him. Unfortunately, the things he does to protect those things that are very meaningful to him are atrocious.”
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Keeley added: “I read six different books by various different people who were nefarious characters within various different outlaw motorcycle clubs and in the culture. That was super helpful to get a sense of where their values were at and that helped me translate that into him on the screen.”
In addition to doing his research, Keeley also committed to playing the part with his physicality.
“He doesn’t say a whole lot but his actions are quite powerful. He’s painted as this very scary guy and when you meet him he’s physically intimidating,” he noted. “But he just seems kind of quiet and it was important for me and for everybody involved that his physical presence be very commanding.”
Jayson’s story had to come to an end on Task — but there is still potential to explore the character further.
“I was talking to Brad and I was like, ‘Let’s do a Dark Hearts prequel show.’ I’d love to delve into the Perry and Jayson of it all including how they met. Maybe someday,” he shared with Us. “I’m down for whatever [when it comes to future roles]. I want to be super conscious about not just about not repeating myself too much. I’ve played a wide variety of characters in my career thus far and I tend to keep doing that.”
Keeley concluded: “I’m drawn to these stories about real people who deal with real struggles. Very often, there’s story lines in there that are quite complex and difficult to look at. I’m drawn to those types of stories and characters. I’d always want to be part of projects that keep people guessing and keep people thinking and aren’t ambient. I want to keep pushing the boundaries of what I’m doing as an artist and challenging people and hopefully creating art that gets people having conversations.”
Task is currently streaming on HBO Max.
